Table 2.
Results for school absenteeism and suicidal ideation
| References | Suicidal ideation construct | School absenteeism construct | Subgroups | OR (unless otherwise specified) | 95% confidence interval | P value | aORa | 95% confidence interval | P value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Almansour and Siziya [50] | Past 1 year suicidal ideation | Truancy (not defined) | 1.43 | 1.40–1.47 | < 0.001* | 1.26 | 1.22–1.31 | < 0.001* | |
| Asante et al. [46] | Past 1 year suicidal ideation | Missed class without permission three or more times in the past 30 days | 1.52 | 1.20–1.92 | < 0.001 | 1.40 | 1.06–1.84 | < 0.05 | |
| Past 1 year suicidal plan | 1.39 | 1.11–1.73 | < 0.001 | 1.31 | 1.01–1.69 | < 0.05 | |||
| Chen et al. [47] | Seriously considered suicide in the past 12 months | Number of days absent from school in the past 30 days (continuous) | Urban | – | – | – | 1.1 | 1.0–1.2 | 0.046 |
| Rural | – | – | – | – | – | NSk | |||
| Cheng et al. [51] | Seriously considered suicide in the past 12 months | 6 or more days absent from school in the past 30 days | Ref | – | – | Ref | – | – | |
| 1–5 days absent from school in the past 30 days | 0.7g | 0.36–1.36 | 0.2902 | 0.66 | 0.31–1.39 | 0.2742 | |||
| 0 days absent from school in the past 30 days | 0.45g | 0.28–0.72 | 0.0011 | 0.49 | 0.28–0.84 | 0.0103 | |||
| Choquet and Menke [53] | Past 1 year suicidal ideationb | Absent from class in the past 12 months (unclear definition) | 2.13* | 1.55–2.93* | 0.0001* | – | – | – | |
| Davaasambuu et al. [48] | Suicide plan in the past 12 months | Missed class in the past 30 days without permission | 1.87 | 1.59–2.20 | < 0.0001 | 1.53 | 1.25–1.87 | < 0.0001 | |
| Urban | 1.98 | 1.55–2.53 | < 0.0001 | 1.54 | 1.14–2.07 | 0.005 | |||
| Rural | 1.85 | 1.48–2.31 | < 0.0001 | 1.55 | 1.19–2.02 | 0.001 | |||
| De Man et al. [59] | Suicidal ideation on scale for suicidal ideation (continuous) | Absenteeism in terms of class periods absent (continuous) | r = 0.08h | > 0.001 | – | Absenteeism reduces risk | |||
| Epstein and Spirito [52] | Considered suicide in the past 12 months | Skipped school because felt unsafe in the past 30 days | – | – | – | – | – | NSk | |
| Made suicide plan in the past 12 months | – | – | – | – | – | NSk | |||
| Fergusson et al. [49] | Suicidal ideation between age 14 and 21 years | Any truancy between age 11 and 15 years | – | – | – | 2.09*i | 1.59–2.69* | < 0.0001* | |
| Kandel et al. [54] | Suicidal ideation (composite measure of few weeks and 12 months) vs nonec | Cuts class (ever vs never) | 1.74* | 1.22–2.49* | 0.0027* | – | – | – | |
| Lau et al. [45] | Suicidal ideation since earthquake 1 month ago | Absence from school since the earthquake when the school was not closed | 2 | 1.50–2.65* | < 0.001 | 1.48 | 1.05–2.09 | < 0.05 | |
| Peltzer and Pengpid [57] | Seriously considered suicide in the past 12 months | In the past 30 days, 1 or more days missed class without permission | 1.54 | 1.41–1.69* | 0.0001* | 0.97 | 0.78–1.2 | > 0.05 | |
| Male | – | – | – | 0.67 | 0.48–0.94 | < 0.05 | |||
| Female | – | – | – | 1.19 | 0.92–1.54 | > 0.05 | |||
| Randall et al. [56] | Seriously considered suicide in the past 12 monthsd | Missed 3 or more days without permission in the past 30 days | – | – | – | 0.31j | 0.04–2.64 | 0.261 | |
| Made suicide plan in the past 12 monthsd | – | – | – | 0.81j | 0.42–1.55 | 0.492 | |||
| Considered suicide or made plan past 12 monthse | 2.03* | 1.36–3.03* | 0.0007* | ||||||
| Sharma et al. [55] | Suicidal ideation in the past 12 months | 3 or more days absent in the past 30 days without giving notice to the school | 2.07 | 1.28–3.36 | < 0.01 | 0.64 | 0.35–1.16 | > 0.05 | |
| Taliaferro and Muehlenkamp [60] | Suicidal ideation in the past 12 months (and never suicide attempts) | Missed school due to feeling unsafe in the past 30 days | Male | – | – | – | 0.70 | 0.51–0.95 | < 0.0033l |
| Female | – | – | – | 0.74 | 0.56–0.97 | > 0.0033l | |||
| Wilson et al. [58] | Past 12 months, seriously considered attempting suicide or made a planf | Missed 3 or more days in the past 30 days without permission | 1.32* | 0.84–1.85* | 0.1322* | – | – | – |
Data is missing where either univariate or multivariate analyses were not reported in the paper and could not be calculated from the data available
*Results calculated from data available within the paper; OR odds ratio, NS non-significant, significance cutoff not reported in paper; Variables are binary unless otherwise stated; statistically significant results in bold (using P < 0.05 cutoff unless otherwise stated)
aAdjusted for covariates listed in Table 1
bDichotomised to never suicidal ideation vs rarely/often and male and female combined
cDichotomised to suicidal ideation vs some/high and male and female combined
dMultinomial logistic regression with no ideation vs ideation only vs ideation + plans as outcomes
eDichotomised to no ideation vs ideation or plan
fCombined suicidal ideation and planning
gAdjusted for age and city only
hr = correlation coefficient, one tailed P value < 0.001 considered as significance cutoff
iConverted from log odds ratio
jRelative risk ratio
kResult not reported in multivariate model due to non-significance
lNS > 0.0033 (Bonferroni correction)